‘Oblivion’ Reviews: Does Tom Cruise Have A Hit?

Tom Cruise is back as an epic action hero for the sci-fi thriller ‘Oblivion,’ which opened in theaters on April 19. But did Tomcat hit the mark with his new flick? Read below to see the reviews!

Tom Cruise’slatest action movie, the sci-fi-flavored Oblivion — out on April 19 — follows Tom through a futuristic, post-apocalyptic Earth. Drama ensues when his character, who has been assigned to extract Earth’s last resources, is forced to question the nature of his own mission. Oblivion promises to take viewers to another world, full of intrigue and action. But did it actually hit the mark? Some reviewers think Tom’s newest movie is a total flop, while others have called it an “adventure to remember” (but mostly, the reviews are not good). You’ll just have to read the reviews and decide for yourself!

The Reviews of ‘Oblivion’

Los Angeles Times

Oblivion is not perfect. Its dystopian story makes no apologies for its familiarity, echoing such films as “The Planet of the Apes,” “The Matrix,” “2001” and even “Wall-E.” And expecting the wheels not to eventually begin to fall off its pleasantly complicated, head-spinning plot (based on the director Joseph Kosinski’s graphic novel) is asking a little too much. But even given all this implausibility, “Oblivion” has the ability to haunt you visually and, with an unanticipated love story, even emotionally. Written by Karl Gajdusek and Michael DeBruyn, this is a piece of futuristic fiction intended for adults, not their children, a film in which firefights and futuristic weapons feel more like afterthoughts than reasons for being.

New York Post

Oblivion is one of those movies in which the main source of interest is simply in figuring out what’s actually going on, though when you do, your reaction is bound to be a shrug. Without an exceptionally skilled director of actors (such as Cameron Crowe), Cruise can’t dial up much emotion, so the two love interests for his character are two more than he can convincingly handle. He may be at home in the cockpit of a killing machine, but when it comes to displaying his humanity, he’s no Wall-E.

The problem with Oblivion, which is based on an unpublished graphic novel [director] Mr. Kosinski wrote and used to pitch the studio, is that it’s been stitched together from bits and pieces that evoke numerous other, far better far-out tales and ideas, conceits and characters from the likes of Philip K. Dick, the Wachowskis, J. G. Ballard and Duncan Jones, specifically his elegant, elegiac movie, “Moon.” No matter how hard Mr. Cruise squares his jaw or flings his body over and against the scenery, and despite the presence of Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who trickle into the story to aid in Jack’s journey, Oblivion never transcends its inspirations to become anything other than a thin copy.

New York

Was Cruise trying to beat out fellow Scientologist John Travolta for the honor of starring in the dumbest sci-fi epic ever? Thank heavens, he lost — nothing will ever be as shatteringly inane as the L. Ron Hubbard–based Battlefield Earth. But joining forces with the director of Tron: Legacy was like checking “d” on the form that said, “I want my space movies more (a) incoherent, (b) plodding, (c) migraine-inducing, or (d) all of the above.” Oblivion spins the same kind of paranoid futuristic fantasy as Battlefield Earth, in which a man must learn the true nature of his identity: that his body is but a temporary vessel, his soul immortal. Only then can he take on an evil empire of plundering anti-individualists from an unnamed planet that sounds like Xenu.

Yikes! Tom Cruise might not have a winner on his hands with this one! But go see it for yourselves, HollywoodLifers! And then tell us what you thought!

It’s amazing how many people don’t seem to understand what this film was about –
– Revelation of truth – the “good guy” finds out he is actually the bad guy
– his memories, everything he thinks he believes, are not his own ideas – he has been programmed – and everything is untrue

– The film appears to be a critique of Western drone warfare in the Third World
– it is about machines waging war against people
– it is about total war destroying all life
– but the technicians of warfare enjoy a good life, comfortable, in luxury, insulated from the reality of what they are enabling, so that they never question what they do
– they see a synthetic, unreal face communicating with the master they work for – they never see it as the inhuman force it really is
– only love can help us reconnect with our humanity, help us remember who we truly are

– The film also (like Minority Report) was a futuristic review of the impact of surveillance technologies – about the ability of machines to track individuals from great distances

Was talking with a friend today who – like so many other people – just didn’t seem to grasp these obvious messages.

This film is a timely and important polemic against a new era in warfare

This is a deep film – perhaps too deep for the public and the reviewers